Vinamilk acquires remaining shares in Cambodia’s Angkormilk

Vinamilk is to more than double its investment in Angkormilk, its joint venture in Cambodia, by acquiring the 49% stake held by BPC Trading.

The move means that Vinamilk will take full control of the dairy producer, increasing its overall investment from $10.21 million to almost $21 million.

Angkormilk was established in 2013 as a joint venture between Vinamilk, which originally held 51%, and BPC Trading. The two parties invested in a 27,000-square-metre facility in Phnom Penh last year, designed to be capable of producing 19 million litres of milk, 64 million yogurt pots and 80 million cans of condensed milk.

That capacity will itself be doubled by 2024, the two companies had previously announced.

The increase in investment ‘is to purchase the entire capital contribution of the local partner in Angkormilk’, Vinamilk chief executive Mai Kieu Liên confirmed in a disclosure to The State Securities Commission and Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange this week.

The dairy company had previously paid $3 million to acquire the remaining 30% stake in California’s Driftwood Dairy in May 2016.

Speaking at the time, Mai Kieu Liên told investors that Vinamilk was ‘intensifying’ its acquisitions activity, in a bid to ‘clearly define its business segments and improve its industry specialisation’.

It continues to invest in well-equipped factories both at home and abroad, including a milk plant in New Zealand and a so-called ‘mega-factory’ located on a 20-hectare site in Binh Duong province, in southern Vietnam.

Two years ago, FoodBev revealed that the business was interested in acquiring a milk processing plant in Europe, as it continued to broaden its focus beyond Vietnam’s borders.

Despite the talks breaking down, the company still operates a European subsidiary – based in Poland – that helps it to secure a regular supply of raw materials and ingredients for its Vietnamese-based operations. In total, it has 13 dairy factories in Vietnam.

This week has been a week of buyouts, with Israel’s Strauss Group announcing yesterday that it would buy TPG Capital out of its Strauss Coffee business, paying €257 million for its 25.1% stake.

And in Africa, dairy giant Danone acquired the remaining 60% in the Tanzanian operations of Kenya’s Brookside Dairy, after investing in a minority stake in 2014.